I get a steady 120 FPS at high fidelity but it appears to be in approximately 720p which means I'm not sure what the point is. I suppose they can't require people have a >= 1440p monitor to run this test but I wonder how useful the result is at that resolution. Perhaps this is why it runs at 120 FPS but refers to 90 FPS as required, although this would be a rather clumsy way of accounting for the difference.

I'm going to assume those game references are trolling/easy publicity unless I see a reason otherwise, although HL3 exclusively for SteamVR would cause quite a reaction

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

LiTh wrote on Feb 19, 2016, 05:50:My complaint of this game is that it is just ridiculously easy to succeed. It offers nowhere near the challenge of SimCity4 (the last real sim city).

What were your guys take on the difficulty curve? I know its quite popular and well received here at Blues.

I found it to be similar to SC4 except that I'm wise enough not to place every service building at the start, which made SC4 seem difficult at first. I use Difficulty Tuning to make it a little more difficult.

At present, I find myself running very low on money until I reach about 10K population, then finances are very healthy until 50K - 100K, at which point I've gotten sloppy with my budget and haven't been placing service buildings as efficiently so I'm roughly breaking even.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

It's not a "map and theme editor", it's a "map-theme editor". They've added the ability to make environments and texture packs to customise how the world looks. The map editor has always been available.

Now's the problem with having hundreds of mods and assets. Some modders got early access so their mods will be compatible but not all.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

It's really no surprise but it's not healthy for a franchise to rely on existing fans. However it's only just out, so a large proportion of the players will be XCOM players who were counting the days until they could get their hands on it.

I wonder how these graphs will look in 2 years' time.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

descender wrote on Feb 11, 2016, 13:27:Population growth goes stale around the 115-120k mark and you have to focus on building the Eden project to make any significant population gains at that point.

I got my main city up to ~300k population but then I didn't touch it for a few months and now when I load the city it's just too overwhelming to get back into and remember all of the things I was trying to do... like why are there entire highways and transit systems missing in the middle of my city you drunk bastard! So... I'm probably going to start a fresh one after this patch comes out.

I've got my install so bogged down with mods (approx. 30) and assets (~250) that performance goes to hell over about 130K. By that point I have opened the whole map and built what I had envisaged so when someone (typically 1Runar) puts an interesting map on the workshop, I'm happy to move on and start over.

Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behaviour of subsequent generations. A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice trained to avoid a smell passed their aversion on to their "grandchildren".

The findings provide evidence of "transgenerational epigenetic inheritance" - that the environment can affect an individual's genetics, which can in turn be passed on.

One of the researchers Dr Brian Dias told the BBC: "This might be one mechanism that descendants show imprints of their ancestor."There is absolutely no doubt that what happens to the sperm and egg will affect subsequent generations."

Prof Marcus Pembrey, from University College London, said the findings were "highly relevant to phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders" and provided "compelling evidence" that a form of memory could be passed between generations.

Flatline wrote on Feb 10, 2016, 15:36:It made me want a backpacking sim though. Some basic rock climbing mechanics (even an assassin's creed style scramble movement engine), and a gargantuan map that would take me days to cross and explore. Basically I want someone to put in something like the Sierras and give me the tools to explore and back the f*ck off and just let me explore. That's the best part of the Fallout/Elder Scrolls series anyway.

The Climb, coming from Crytek in the next month or two. Small catch: you'll need an Oculus Rift.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

I felt that all my cities in SimCity 2013 were the same, mostly thanks to that stupid counter-productive city specialisation system which made you put some sort of mine in the prime building area on every map, with little more than a few cosmetic differences between each mine and therefore city.

Cities Skylines suffers from this but in my opinion not to anything like the same extent. I've put hundreds of hours into it and I'm not done yet. This is thanks to mods, having more building assets and different themes for districts helps a lot.

It helps that the cities' maps are 25 times the area, so one natural resource isn't going to fill half the flat land available.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Quboid wrote on Feb 9, 2016, 10:26:It feels like they have inadvertently created a pyramid scheme, where they've hyped things up so much that they need more money to meet expectations, so they need more hype to get money, so they need more money, and so on. I don't know if anyone's getting rich out of it in the mean time.

Actually what they've created is a kind of ship Ponzi scheme. New ships are sold to finish production on older, concept ships.

Derp, that's what I meant. Thanks.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

PHJF wrote on Feb 9, 2016, 09:59:Want to see Kyle Bosman land on his feet. He had a weekly op ed I've consistently watched for the past two years, much more thoughtful and introspective than anything else.

Agreed, he has real talent. I hope he doesn't end up at IGN or something.

He was the only person there that I watched, I hope The Final Bosman reappears in some form. The narrator guy who did the countdowns has a good voice, Brandon Jones I think.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke